VETERINARY SURGEONS BILL [H.L.]

My Lords, I beg to move the first Amendment standing in my name on the Marshalled List. This Amendment represents a slight re-drafting of the one originally put down at Committee stage by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn. I am most grateful to him for calling attention to this point, and I am glad that he recollected a similar matter when he was at the Scottish Office. The Amendment will enable the Council of the Royal College, when-even it might be appropriate, to alter the scheme for the conduct of the election of elected members of the Council, provided that the Privy Council agree. I think your Lordships will agree that this is a most useful provision to include,
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and one that makes for economy of effort and efficient administration. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will accept this Amendment.

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Page 20, line 31, at end insert—
(" . A scheme under the last foregoing paragraph may be amended by the Council, but no amendment of the scheme shall have effect unless approved by the Privy Council.").—(Lord Champion.)

§LORD CHAMPION moved to add to the Schedule:
. The additional elected members of the Council required to bring the number of such members up to twenty-four shall be elected before, and shall come into office at, the annual general meeting of the College in 1967.. Of the persons elected members of the Council at the election of such members in 1967 one shall retire in each of the three next following years, being—

(a) that one of the successful candidates who at that election received the smallest number of votes and remains a member by virtue of being so elected, or

(b) if two or more such candidates received an equal number of votes, the candidate who has been registered on the register for the shortest period or, if two or more such candidates have been registered for a shorter period than any other but for the same period as each other, one of them chosen by lot.".

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The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the second Amendment standing in my name on the Marshalled List. As I promised during the Committee stage, I have put down this Amendment to cover the rather complex transitional arrangements made necessary by increasing the number of elected members on the Council from 20 to 24 in Clause 1 of the Bill. In asking the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, not to move his Amendment on this matter, I explained that there were various ways of moving from a system where five members retire each year to one where six go.

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Briefly, the method we have chosen is, first, in 1967 to elect an additional four members—that is, a total of nine members—to bring the number up to 24.
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Then, in each of the next three following years, one of the six members to retire will be one of those elected in 1967. He will normally be the one with the smallest number of votes at that election. If, however, two or more have the same number of votes, the choice falls on the one who has been on the register for the shortest time. Should it then happen that two or more have been on the register for the same period of time as each other, one would be chosen by lot. It is at this point that I detect the influence of the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, for in the last resort we get back to where he began—choice by lot. The Amendment embodies the transitional procedure favoured by the Royal College. Once again I invite your Lordships to agree to the Amendment standing in my name.

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Amendment moved—
Page 20, line 36, at end insert the said new paragraph.—(Lord Champion.)

My Lords, again I should like to thank the noble Lord. I have no doubt at all that he has chosen a better method to deal with this matter than I could have done. As I explained at an earlier stage, the method I suggested was put down largely because it was easier to draft in that way. I do not think that it matters very much which way it is done, because if a member of the Council is still acceptable he can be re-elected in any case, and it would not really matter very much how we dealt with the retirement procedure.

There is one small point about which I am still not quite clear—that is, what happens at the 1966 elections? It may be that they have already taken place but if they have not there will be a slight difficulty because of the terms of Clause 1(2), which requires 6 members to retire, instead of 5 as previously.

My Lords, I hate to admit that I am not quite sure about the point which the noble Lord has put to me. However, if there is any difficulty arising out of this, I will certainly put it right at a later stage. I do not think there is. But I am not sure on this point. I think it is best to be frank with the House about this rather than to "waffle".